The countryside and photography have been lifelong passions for Pauline.  She was lucky enough to spend almost 20 years dairy farming in Somerset and this fuelled her photography to include the wonderful characters of the farming world.

Since leaving farming, she has had more time for photography and whilst initially resisting the change to digital imaging, she has now fully embraced the digital ‘lightroom ‘. This is heavily influenced by her years in the wet ‘darkroom’.   Black and white photography is still her first love.  it is an artistic interpretation which emphasises form and texture.  She loves  to produce high quality prints of her work.  Black and White is her preferred medium, she has found the technique of using a camera adapted so that it can record infrared of particular use in the Blackdown hills where the predominant colour is green.  When sun lit green renders light on the sensor and this enables the very  special field patterns of the Blackdown Hills to be more apparent.  Some specular artistic  images can result.  Infrared is also excellent for bring out the character of the stone buildings

In 2002 , she was commissioned by the then ‘Countryside Agency’ to build up an image bank for the newly designated AONB of the Blackdown Hills.  This relatively under-populated region of small farms and many lanes continues to fascinate and delight her.  During that year, she made many friends in the farming community and has continued to take pictures there ever since.

Most farms in the Blackdown Hills are tucked away out of sight, but her year of photography gave her the chance to go down those farm paths and she was absolutely fascinated by the vernacular farm buildings.  She feels they are of national importance with their similarity of style and building material.  . Nearly all have a ‘thrashing barn’ and  are on a small scale which is unsuited to modern farming, They are predominantly  built out of the same stone called ‘chert’ which just lies around in the fields.  She has recorded the buildings on over 100 farms .  A large collection of images  from her years of photography, were exhibited  at the Somerset Rural Life Museum in 2021 and she produced a book of the images ‘Behind The Hedges’. These images are now all safely stored in the Somerset and Devon Heritage collections, where they are fully accessible.

Very few people take photographs on the Blackdowns as you have to walk and be sensitive to its gentle beauty.  You cannot drive and see it.